his post is part of Rassak’s “YouTube Tuesdays Plus” featuring mini case studies of marketing videos (sometimes we look at other digital media too). New on Tuesdays. Don’t miss one, subscribe.
Today is July 3, AKA Independence Eve, a witty “holiday” made up by the people at Newcastle Brown Ale. What a cool concept, and their videos are even cooler… but, sadly, their digital distribution is, shall we say, a bit “pants.”
It’s a great video (there are more featuring Elizabeth Hurley and Zachary Quinto.. this one with Stephen Merchant is my favorite).
BUT. Do the following experiment: Google “3rd of July.” Does Newcastle show up at all? Nope. It doesn’t.
Their’s is a truly great great concept — create a holiday, an idea that could be on the tongues of millions. It has fantastic creative execution (many youtube views, in fact)… but it has a very poor digital distribution strategy. They fell down in a key area: search engine optimization (or SEO).
I admit that up to a few years ago I didn’t truly see the value of SEO for brand building (I always thought of it as very much an e-commerce, direct marketing tool.. and not really a core area for us at Rassak where our focus is on brand definition and brand growth). My appreciation for how SEO can be used to build brands began to change and now it’s a big part of our toolbox (though we work with partners on the advanced aspects).
Newcastle invested a lot in creating this content. Why not ensure that it has as many opportunities to be seen/found/shared as possible? It’s pretty straightforward stuff actually… it just takes some thinking/planning and doing. Actually, if you search for “If We Won” the campaign does show up in search results. If We Won is the official name of the campaign (and it has a website) but the biggest branding elements of the videos are “July 3rd” and “Independence Eve”. “Independence Eve” has some (very weak) showing in search results whereas “July 3rd.” has none. There are natural factors for why this is true… but those factors could have been addressed by Newcastle pretty easily.
Meanwhile… happy July 3 — and 4th. I hope you get some chill time.
